


Zakalyatsa

by Gunshy Fiction (Defiler_Wyrm)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Flash Fic, Gen, Implied Relationships, Lucifer's Cage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-25
Updated: 2013-03-25
Packaged: 2017-12-06 11:20:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/735096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Defiler_Wyrm/pseuds/Gunshy%20Fiction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It doesn't hurt anymore but that doesn't mean it hasn't left a mark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Zakalyatsa

**Author's Note:**

> закаляться (zakalyatsa): Russian word meaning "adapted to the cold" (literally, "harden" or "temper").

It's been a few years now; if you were to ask him he'd say he's had time to adjust, though having the trauma lifted from him like peeling cracked, dry skin off the top of a sunburn surely helped. He takes care not to think about it, though. He still remembers – remembers three lifetimes' worth of phantom years – and even if is doesn't cripple him anymore that doesn't make the memories more pleasant.

He understands Dean's reticence now. By silent agreement neither of them will ask and neither of them will volunteer to tell.

Once in a great while some little thing will give him cause to believe that even though the wounds were taken from him, that his mind healed at the expense of another's. they still left marks behind. Every now and then the workings of his brain slip on an unexpected process the way fingertips slide across pearl-smooth scars set in his skin.

Ah, such as now.

They're on the road again and he's moving around the motel room without much thought, pre-occupied as he is with the details of the hunt and the undercurrent of anxiety that's threaded through his brother's voice more and more with every passing day and every unanswered prayer. It sets him on edge on a level he can't even register. Auto-pilot sets a course for some small comfort and he only realises he'd grown tense once he's begun to relax again.

But the room falls quiet, and it's awkward, and his brows draw together when he finds Dean standing stunned and silent, staring–

"Snap out of it," he's growling now; "you burn yourself or something?"

He'd have noticed if he had. He's perfectly comfortable – at ease now, more or less, and their room is the perfect temperature – or thought so, til he looks down to find his hand dipped into the bucket of ice they'd found on the dresser, swirling idly and chilled to the bone.

He sucks in a breath, pulls back, and stammers an agreement, some flimsy coffee-spilling lie. It breaks his heart to hear Dean say, "Okay Sammy," in that voice that screams _It's not, it's not okay_.

But by silent agreement Dean never asks why his little brother gravitates to cold now like a moth seeks flame; and by silent agreement Sam never says how much he had adapted to the perfect, frigid dark – much less how much some pearl-smooth, scarred-up part of him must miss what crouched, once, just beneath his skin.


End file.
